


Insurance Is My Business

by KillClaudio



Category: Double Indemnity (1944)
Genre: (Or is it?), Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Dive Bars, Flirting, Insurance Fraud, Investigations, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26483164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillClaudio/pseuds/KillClaudio
Summary: The man sitting in Barton Keyes' office was devastatingly handsome. His dark eyes danced with mischief, like he'd just told a joke and was waiting for you to get it, and his easy smile had widened as he'd taken in Keyes from head to toe. Keyes didn't trust him an inch."Well, then… Mr Neff, is it? So you say you crashed your car?"
Relationships: Barton Keyes/Walter Neff
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: Fandom Giftbox 2020





	Insurance Is My Business

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nedrika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nedrika/gifts).



The man sitting in Barton Keyes' office was devastatingly handsome. His dark eyes danced with mischief, like he'd just told a joke and was waiting for you to get it, and his easy smile had widened as he'd taken in Keyes from head to toe. Keyes didn't trust him an inch.

"Well, then… Mr Neff, is it? So you say you crashed your car?"

"That's right," Neff said. He looked completely relaxed, one ankle propped on his knee and a cigarette dangling idly from his fingers. "My Dodge coupe. Some genius stepped off the sidewalk right in front of me, and while I was steering around him I had a disagreement with a lamppost."

"Was the lamppost hurt?"

That made Neff's eyes dance even more. "It'll live. I'm not sure about my fender."

Keyes opened the book of actuarial tables in front of him and glanced across the first column. "Had you been drinking?"

"Sure, I'd had a couple, but I wasn't drunk."

"Were you tired? Long day at work?"

"Not especially."

"Were you distracted? Did you have a dame in the passenger seat?"

"No dames. I'm not married." Neff's eyes flicked to Keyes left hand. In a voice as innocent as a convent novice, he said, "Women are trouble, in my experience. When I'm having a quiet drink of an evening, I want a man to talk to. Don't you think, Mr Keyes?"

Keyes gave him a hard stare; the kind that could stop a bull at fifty paces. "Was it raining?"

"You tell me. I bet you have the weather report from last week right here on your desk."

"Mr Neff—"

"Make it Walter. Say, what does the 'B' stand for? I noticed it on the door as I came in. B. Keyes."

Reluctantly, Keyes said, "Barton."

"Well, Barton—"

"My friends just call me Keyes."

"That's fine with me. I'm always happy to make new friends. Keyes—"

"What about your automobile? In good condition, is it? You change the oil regularly?"

"I take care of her. Is there a problem with my policy? Only I'm up-to-date on my payments, and I was under the impression you had me insured."

"This may surprise you, Mr Neff, but we don't throw money at every man who walks in the door."

Keyes had always been a bit too straight for his own good. He had a tendency to say what he thought before he'd finished thinking it, and the secretaries would dive for cover whenever he started shouting. But it didn't seem to bother this easygoing man. He just stood there looking absurdly handsome, indulgent smile curving his lips, like he thought Keyes had done something cute.

"Alright, ask your questions," Neff said with a shrug. "But suppose we do it somewhere a little more congenial. I passed a pretty cozy-looking bar on my way down here, thought I might give it a try. What do you say?"

Keyes heart was trying to do an impression of a racehorse. He ignored it, just like he was ignoring the warm look Neff was giving him. "Were you breaking the speed limit?"

"I don't think so. Do I seem like the kind of guy to break the limit?"

"Every chance you get."

"Well, maybe I am. What's life without a little risk, after all?"

Keyes glanced back down at his paperwork. He was trying very hard not to look at that enticing smile, or the elegant lines of Neff's body as he shifted in the chair. "Says here you're an automobile salesman."

"That's right, I work at the dealership down in Wilshire. You should come over some time and look around. We've got a sweet little Horch 853, safe, reliable, never gave anyone a day of trouble in her entire life. I think you and her would get along fine. I'll even buy you a drink after."

"Been doing it long?"

"About two years." 

Keyes imagined him turning that smooth charm on every woman who walked through the door on her husbands arm. "I'll bet you're damn good at it, too."

"Would you? Bet, I mean? You don't strike me as the kind of guy to bet on much of anything."

"Gambling is a mug's game. The house always wins."

Neff shrugged. "In the long run, sure. But sometimes a man can get lucky, at least for one night."

"And are you lucky, Mr Neff?"

"I guess we'll have to wait and see." He stubbed out his cigarette in Keyes' ashtray. "So what's the denouement? Have I passed muster?"

Keyes had already had too much of that smile, or maybe not enough. "We'll be investigating your claim in due course," he told Neff. He clamped a cigar between his teeth and patted his pockets for his matches. "Someone will call you."

Neff flicked a match alight with his fingernail, smooth as silk, and held it out to Keyes. "I'll be waiting by the phone."

  


* * *

  


Handsome men did not just walk into Keyes' office and start flirting with him. He didn't need actuarial tables to tell him the chances of that. And the second Neff's claim had landed on his desk, Keyes' gut had started to feel like concrete. Something was wrong here.

The next morning, he went out to the scene of the crash to take a look around. A small bump like that wouldn't cause much damage, but there should still have been something: marks on the road where Neff had hit the brakes, little bits of glass lying around, a scraped lamp post. But there wasn't a single lamp post along that street that had so much as a dent, and Keyes knew because he spent three hours examining every single one of them.

When he was done he went back to his car and sat a while, looking through the claims form. The description said that the Dodge coupe had a 10-inch dent in the front fender that had just kicked the bottom of the grill. Keyes didn't need his actuarial tables to tell him that Neff had hit something short, squat, and definitely not a lamppost.

Neff had crashed his car, alright. But somewhere else.

The address of the car dealership was in the file. Keyes drove over there and wandered around until he found Neff's car sitting in the far corner. He bent down and examined the tires, taking a rubbing with his pencil in a corner of his notebook. Then he walked slowly around the vehicle, examining it for recent dents and scratches, making a note of them in his notebook. On the front fender, he noticed something that made him pause; a few flakes of yellow paint clinging to the grill, just where the biggest scrape was visible. Keyes scraped a few flakes off and folded them into a page of his notebook. 

"That one's not for sale," a voice said.

Keyes stood up, to find himself confronted with the same charming smile that had been haunting him all morning. "Hello, Mr Neff."

"I told you, call me Walter. You come to take a look at that Horch? Or we've got a pretty little Plymouth with only a couple of miles on her."

Keyes took a deep breath, and told himself this was the best way to get to the bottom of this rotten business. "Actually, I was wondering about that drink."

"Sure." Neff put his hands in his pockets and grinned. "As a matter of fact, I didn't take my lunch yet. Could you eat? There's a nice little bistro just up the road—"

"Where do you usually drink?"

"I don't know, one of the bars on North Vermont, somewhere close to home. Sometimes I take a walk down Wilshire for a glass of whiskey. I'm a bourbon man, myself. What's your poison, Keyes?"

"Martini. I like them dry, with a lot of olives."

"Oh? You're not salty enough already?"

Keyes absolutely refused to laugh. "How often do you go to North Vermont?"

"I don't know, a couple of times a week?"

"The night you crashed your car, for instance?"

Neff frowned. "What is this, a drink or the Spanish Inquisition?"

"I've just been taking a look at your Dodge. Where did this paint come from?"

Neff glanced at it and shrugged. "Guess I must have picked it up somewhere."

"From the lamppost you hit?" Keyes reached a hand in his pocket, looking for a match. He needed a cigar.

"Probably," Neff said.

"And was that lampost outside a bar?"

"It might have been. What's the plan, here? Buy me a drink to soften me up and see what you can get out of me?"

"Now look here, Neff. I don't like being lied to." He patted his pockets again. Dammit, where were his—

Neff silently held out a lit match. "Lying? Is that what I'm doing?"

"Every month, hundreds of claims come across my desk. Some of them are phonies, and I always know which ones. How do I know? I feel it, in here." Keyes jabbed himself in the gut. "Every time a phony comes along he ties knots in my stomach."

"And I tie knots in your stomach?"

"Like a sailor's rope. A lot of people have tried to pull the wool over my eyes, and every single one of them failed. You know why? Because I never give up. I worry away at the problem like a dog with a bone until I get to the truth. And the truth is, you're hiding something. Did you run a red light, is that it? Did you hit someone?"

Neff wasn't smiling now. "I get it, you don't like me. It sank in after a while."

"You want a drink? You can drink alone." Keyes clamped his cigar between his teeth and headed for his car.

"I could certainly use one."

Keyes turned on his heel. "You know, you've told me one thing."

"Have I? What's that?"

"There _is_ something to get out of you."

  


* * *

  


Keyes drove along North Vermont for hours looking for yellow lampposts or signs of an accident, then headed up to where Neff lived on North Kingsely and did the same thing. Nothing. Frustrated, he gave up and went back to the office.

He wanted to put a couple of men on Neff, see where he went and what he got up to, but Norton turned him down flat. "It'll cost us more to do that for a couple of days than it'll cost to get the fender repaired, and what if you don't find anything? Just cut him a check and let the whole damn thing go."

But Keyes couldn't let it go. He went home and ate dinner and turned on the radio and turned off the radio, and all the time that knot was sitting in his stomach, telling him that something was wrong. Where had the crash happened? What had Neff got mixed up in? Who was he covering for?

The hell of it was, Keyes liked Neff. He was good looking and he was funny and he was a damn sight less dull than the rest of the city. He seemed like someone Keyes could spend a few evenings with, could sit with in some quiet bar putting away martinis and setting the world to rights. And if Keyes had known Neff to be an honest man, he would have taken him up on his offer. But he knew different. Neff was a liar. 

Eventually he got so damn sick of his own pacing that he got in the car and drove back out to Neff's place. He parked fifty yards up the road, where he had a good view of the front door but wouldn't be too obvious, and sat there twiddling his thumbs and chewing on an unlit cigar. He could see the light of Neff's apartment up at the top of the building. Every so often a shadow would pass across the curtain.

Neff came out just after nine and picked his car up from the valet, and Keyes followed him a couple of cars behind as he did a pretty pace up the road, heading west. They drove past squat buildings with peeling paint, and things got shabbier and shabbier and skirts got shorter and shorter as the area got more and more bohemian, until finally they fetched up on a narrow side street lined with shabby bars, lights and music spilling out onto the street. 

This was a part of town where no man with a lick of sense would admit to going. He sure as hell wouldn't admit to it on paper where it could be used against him later.

Keyes waited until he saw which bar Neff had gone into, then parked at the far end of the street. He got out and walked back the way they'd come, checking every wall and lamp post and parking meter as he went. 

Twenty yards back up the road, he found what he'd been looking for; a fire hydrant painted bright yellow and scraped down to the metal on one side where something had hit it.

He sat in his car, chewing on his cigar and wishing he'd brought a book of matches, until Neff came out two hours later and got back in his car. As soon as he was gone, Keyes got out of the car, walked back up the street, and went into the bar.

He'd been expecting a place with girls for hire, maybe, or drugs. That wasn't the game at all. The bar was quiet, lights kept purposefully low, and there were lots of dark private corners filled with cozy love seats. It was hard to see much through the haze of smoke hanging in the air. On stage, a guy in an outlandish arrangement of sequins and feathers was crooning about moonlight and lost love. The couples dancing on the floor were mostly men, although here and there a few women danced together, cheeks just brushing. Keyes looked around him one last time, and walked back out.

  


* * *

  


The next morning he got to the office early and signed the paperwork that would pay for Walter Neff's brand new fender. He dropped it off with his secretary and spent the rest day furiously working through a backlog of paperwork. He clocked out at exactly five, ate dinner at a counter down the block, and got a shave and a shoe shine. Then he drove back up town and parked himself at the bar.

He was nursing his second drink when Neff showed up a little before nine. From the corner of his eye, Keyes saw Neff hesitate briefly, before stepping over to the bar and ordering a bourbon. He dropped down on the stool next to Keyes, and for a couple of minutes neither of them said anything. 

"I signed the paperwork this morning," Keyes finally said. "Check's in the post."

"Is that so?"

"That's so."

Neff threw him an uncertain look. "No more questions?"

"No more questions."

Neff breathed out slowly. He shook out a cigarette and lit a match, but he couldn't seem to get the two of them together. His hands were trembling faintly. Finally, Keyes leaned over and held his hand steady, fingers wrapped gently around Neff's wrist, until the flame caught.

A couple of drags on his cigarette seemed to calm Neff. "I was starting to worry it was a police job, when you figured me out."

"No." Keyes stared down into his drink. "I'm a lot of things, Walter, but I'm not a hypocrite."

"I wondered about that."

"Were you testing me?" Keyes asked. "Trying to figure out if I'd be sympathetic?"

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"So why did you keep going after I brushed you off?"

"Guess I couldn't help myself." Neff laughed into his whiskey. "I'm a sucker for a cigar-smoker with a soft heart."

"Soft heart? Me?"

"You're not fooling anyone with that old crab routine." Neff took another long drag of his cigarette. His expression as he regarded Keyes was becoming less wary and more speculative. "You didn't come all the way out here to tell me the check's in the post."

"The Pacific All-Risk Insurance Company is looking for salesmen. They want guys who can ring doorbells and slap backs and dish out a smooth line of monkey talk. You'd be swell at it. What do you say?"

Neff looked pointedly at the low lights, the eye-catching dancers, the men embracing in dark corners. "You came down to this bar to offer me a job?"

"I thought it would do for the first course."

Neff stared at him for a moment, then he shook his head and smiled. "Does the Pacific All-Risk Insurance Company have rules against their salesmen flirting with the claims managers?"

Keyes took a deep breath, eyes firmly fixed on the rows of bottles that lined the bar. "It does not."

"Then sure, I'm interested."

"Come down to the office tomorrow morning. I'll introduce you to the big boss."

"I'll do that." Walter took a slug of his bourbon. "That's the first course out of the way. What's for dessert?"

"Thought we could have that drink. For real this time. If you're still interested."

The expression that lit up Walter's face made knots tie themselves in Keyes' stomach all over again. 

"You serious?" Walter asked.

"I'm always serious."

"We'll have to see if we can do something about that." He gestured to the bartender. "Give me another bourbon over here, and a martini. Dry, with two olives."

Walter turned sideways on his stool and leaned an elbow on the bar, the better to smolder at Keyes. Keyes had to admit that he liked it. 

"You have any plans for the rest of the evening, Barton?"

Keyes shrugged. "Have another drink. Drive home. Go to bed."

"Alone?"

"I always go to bed alone."

Walter's smile was like a check waiting to be cashed. "We'll have to see if we can do something about that, too."


End file.
